“Lord Hugo?” Sal said, the words coming out in a whisper.
“Ewan—Ewan, my boy, is that you? Salvatori Ewan? By the Light, can it be?”
Sal hesitated a moment, unable to think he simply responded: “Yes.”
“By the Light, Ewan, what terrible twist of fate could have brought us together under these circumstances.”
“Your rescue, My Lord.”
“My rescue? Why, Ewan, how could you have even known?”
“Lilliana, she told—”
“Lilliana!” Lord Hugo shouted. “My little girl, is she safe? What has become of her?”
“She’s safe, My Lord. I left her with trustworthy friends.”
“Light be praised, my boy, this is good news. So rare has good news been since I was brought to this place. I've been here in the dark, worried sick over my little girl, and these savages have refused me even the courtesy of an answer. By the Light, Ewan, this is the first chance I've had to speak with anyone since they took me, and I find I am reinvigorated by your answers.”
Despite everything, Sal couldn't help but smile. This silly little lord, what a damned fool he was. Either he knew something Sal didn't, or he was too dimwitted to see just how fucked they truly were.
“Do you have any idea where we are?” Sal asked.
“I was not able to see where it was they took me, but I have been here ever since. They have kept me here, in this place, even when they come to ask their questions and beat me like an animal. And in the night, I heard beasts howling.”
“Dogs?” Sal asked.
“I must presume. Often times, I hear them barking. It is only fitting that this place should smell of a kennel.”
A kennel—could it be?
“I cannot imagine who would do something so—so, damnably barbaric.”
Sal didn't know whether to play along or tell the man the truth. And so, he chose neither and kept his mouth shut. He knew who had taken Lord Hugo, and he had a good idea why.
“You’ve been here the whole time?” Sal asked.
“Since the very day that I was taken, yes.”
“You were never taken to Scarvini Palace?”
“I’m not familiar with that palace, but no, I was taken to this place and have not left this very room.”
Fuzzy as it all was, a thought penetrated the fog of Sal’s mind. He wondered if Valla had merely been mistaken. Why should she have thought Lord Hugo had been taken to Scarvini Palace?
The door opened, and light flooded into the room.
Four men shuffled in, two of them went for Sal, removing his bonds enough that he could stand. When they untied the binding about his legs, feeling rushed painfully to his feet.
A bout of dizziness swept over him, he felt too weak to walk, but was forced along, half dragged through the doorway and out into a brightly lit hall.
“Lord Hugo,” Sal said, halting momentarily. He was shoved and nearly lost his balance as he stumbled.
One of the men grabbed Sal by the arm and pulled him along roughly. As they went down the hallway, Sal had a feeling of familiarity. He'd been here before; he was certain of that.
A few paces behind, Sal saw Lord Hugo, being dragged along. The little lord looked to be in a bad state, both eyes sunken, bruised purple and black. His nose was a swollen mess, bulbous and painfully red, dried blood crusted about his nostrils. He had a cut on one of his cheekbones, and his lips were cracked and inflamed, rimmed with dried blood.
For all that, the little lord looked somewhat stoic; his chin held high, chest puffed out as he limped boldly toward what was most likely his end.
Sal was prodded by a cudgel, and he jerked back into motion, stumbling as the pair of thugs dragged him along. They continued through the hall and up a set of stairs. It was when they passed through the next door that Sal finally realized where he was.
The Pit, he cursed inwardly as his heart hammered faster yet.
They entered into the great arena hall. At its center was a caged fighting pit. And within the pit, a beast paced across the sand.
The beasts sleek white coat rippled with muscle beneath raised hackles. Yellow canines bared as slaver dripped from the hounds snarling maw. Red eyes fixed on Sal as the hound sprang, heavy paws slamming against the iron bars of the cage. It barked in savage fury.
Sal flinched. He knew that hound—it had belonged to Garibaldi Scarvini—the dog Garibaldi had brought to the Pit on the day Dominik had taken his life.
Beside one of the cage gates, stood a host of Scarvini thugs. At the Dead center of the group was none other than Don Giotto Scarvini.
Sal and Lord Hugo were shoved to their knees before the Commission don.
Don Scarvini looked down at Sal with a pair of cold sunken eyes, thumb, and forefinger on his sharp chin as though contemplating something.
“I fucking remember you,” said Don Scarvini. “You were with the rat. You tried to kill me, boy.”
The Scarvini thugs stood about their boss in stunned silence. No one dared speak. The only sound was that of the hound snarling as it rattled the heavy chain slack and taught, kicking up sand in its wake as it bashed into the cage wall of the arena.
Sal swallowed, he could feel Lord Hugo’s stunned stare, but he didn’t dare take his eyes off the crime boss.
A feeling of dread sank into the pit of Sal’s stomach as he noticed something about the don’s neck. There, displayed on the chest of Don Giotto Scarvini, was Sal’s tarnished gold locket.
Scarvini spat and turned to Lord Hugo. “And you—you fucking cock sucker.” Don Scarvini spat once more. The globule hit Lord Hugo on the face with a wet smack. “Fourth Seat of the High Council.” Don Scarvini made a noise of disgust. “Thought that little cushioned chair gave you some sort of right, did you? Thought you could put your hand in my pockets?”
Lord Hugo was shaking his head. He looked on the verge of tears — the once-great lord, driven to his knees, a beaten and broken man.
Surely now, he would beg for mercy, grovel before this thief lord in hopes of buying his freedom.
“I’ll not cower before you, gutter scum,” said Lord Hugo, his back straight, chin raised, eyes narrowed.
Sal smirked, he was heartened by the display of defiance from the fat little man.
Don Scarvini stepped up to Lord Hugo and kicked the little lord square in the face.
Lord Hugo squealed and folded over like a sheet in the wind, whimpering as he cringed into a ball on the floor.
“You think you can squeeze us? Think you can put your little hand out for bribes. The fuck you think you are, little man?” Don Scarvini drove the heel of his boot into the fat lord's ribs, evoking yet another pained squeal. “Who do you think it was that brought the squeeze to this city? I can sure as shit tell you it wasn't you fat lords sitting up on your hill!” Scarvini kicked again, and again.
The Scarvini men cheered on their boss, and the hound slammed up against the cage, barking at a high pitch, slavering maw biting the iron bars.
Don Scarvini stepped back and sighed loudly as he slicked back his hair. Then he turned away as if to collect his composure. When he turned back to face Sal, the signs of furry had mostly abated, apart from the throbbing blue vein in the don's neck and the fire that burned red-hot behind his eyes. There was a promise in those eyes, a promise of cold, merciless death.
“And you, boy. I thought you’d looked familiar that night you broke into my home. I recognized the rat and the Norsic right off, but you. . .”
Sal went cold. Odie, Don Scarvini had recognized the big man, but of course, he had. How many seven-foot Norsic oafs walked around the city with battle hammers strapped to their backs?
“It seems not even your companion recognized you. Isn’t that right, big man?”
Sal’s heart stopped. Surely he couldn’t mean—Sal’s eyes met the stupefied look of Odie.
The big man was standing among the Scarvini gang. Somehow, unharmed, his hammer strapped to his back, his shoulders h
unched, eyes downcast.
“Recognize the boy yet, Odie?” Don Scarvini said coldly, he sneered. “Well, no matter. You gave us the rat, and Dominik the rat, was worth your life, at least.”
Sal flinched. It had been Odie—the big man had been the one who'd betrayed Dominik—the bloody big man?
Don Scarvini smirked. “I’m going to assume you didn’t know it was the big man turned over your rat friend?” He laughed, and his men joined him. “The fuck you think was going to happen when I saw this Norsic asshole in my bloody solar?” Scarvini asked, gesturing to Odie. “Well, even the big ones bleed, don't they? Course, we didn't even need to spill a drop—here I thought I'd be forced to use this new death mark I'd purchased, but Sacrull's hell if he wasn't willing to draw the rat out himself.”
Sal was a dead man. All hope of surviving the encounter had extinguished at the sight of the Odie. Sal shook his head, tears welling in his eyes, a knot in his throat.
“What’s the matter? You think I wouldn’t find out who it was broke into my fucking home? I didn’t think anyone could be that stupid. But then, you went and raided my fucking joint, didn’t you? Think you were going to catch me with my breeches down?” Don Scarvini laughed coldly.
“Wasn't after you,” Sal said through clenched teeth. A slight tremor ran through him, his heart pounding, mind spinning. He was terrified, but his anger seemed too powerful a thing to contain.
“Oh, and I suppose the night you came into my home, you were not there to kill me neither?”
“No,” Sal said, shaking his head. “That night, I was there to kill you, and I would have done so gladly, just as I killed your son—”
Sal cut short as Don Scarvini’s boot struck him in the mouth.
Scarvini drew back his leg for another kick but seemed to regain his composure. And rather than kicking Sal again, the don took a step back. “What do you know of my sons?” he asked, a tremor in his voice.
Sal sat up slowly, blood ran down the corner of his mouth, and he hurt all over. He straightened and looked down at the little Lord Hugo, still curled up beside him, then at the hound barking in the caged arena. Only then did he look back up at Don Scarvini matching his cold glare.
“Which son was that?” Sal asked coolly. “I mean, I watched them both die, yeah?”
Don Scarvini snarled, but he didn’t take the bait. Instead, he spat. “You can say what you have to say, or I can feed you to my bitch now. Your choice.”
Sal couldn’t help but look toward the hound. The chained beast ran back and forth across the sand, barking as though it had gone mad. Sal looked away from the dog, and focused instead, upon the don’s retinue, when something else caught his eye. One of the men Sal had encountered at the Scarvini estate, the skinny door guard, Torvald—Torvald wore a shit-eating grin on his face—and a very familiar blade tucked in his belt.
Scarvini’s lip curled back, and he opened his mouth to speak.
“Giuseppe didn’t say much,” Sal said goadingly. “Not after I cooked him, that is. He just screamed with the rest of them. Garibaldi, though, Garibaldi begged like the coward he was before Dominik put the knife to him. Opened his throat while he was still blubbering.”
The vein in Scarvini’s neck pulsed as he grated his jaw back and forth. “You’ll be begging for mercy before I’m done with you, boy. But that can wait. Before I feed you to my bitch, I want to know, if it wasn’t to kill me, what were you doing in my whorehouse?”
Sal glanced at the big man, but he still seemed too ashamed to meet Sal’s eyes. “I went to rescue Lord Hugo.”
“Lord Hugo?” Don Scarvini said, as though he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He nudged Lord Hugo with the toe of his boot. “What’s the nephew of Stefano Lorenzo want with this dirtbag?”
Sal didn’t deign to answer.
“No? Nothing?” asked Scarvini.
Some of the Scarvini men jeered and slung insults. The man holding Sal’s pigsticker spat at Lord Hugo.
“No matter,” said Don Scarvini. “Guess I’ll feed you both to the bitch and just see what comes out your big mouth then.”
The retinue laughed as Don Scarvini himself stepped forward and grabbed Lord Hugo by his hair, lifting him to his knees as the little lord cried out in pain.
Lord Hugo made a pathetic attempt to fight off the don's grip, but even without the shackles, he'd have had little success in the matter.
A group of three thugs closed in on Sal, Odie among them.
“I’m sorry about this,” Odie said, grabbing hold of Sal’s arm as though claiming him.
Sal wanted to respond but found he was too choked up to get the words out. His heart was in his throat, his head spinning with what he’d learned.
The big man was the traitor.
Sal didn’t want to believe it, yet, it all made perfect sense. The evidence was right there before him.
More laughter and jeering came from the Scarvini men as their don roughly dragged Lord Hugo by the hair, the little lord squalling.
Sal was shoved in the back by one of the Scarvini men but was otherwise led gently by the big man.
As they drew near the pit, a man at the other end of the arena began tugging the massive hound’s chain. The thug pulled, and the chain and the beast bucked and reared, kicking up a dust cloud in the sand as it roared its defiance with a growl like rumbling thunder.
A fat Scarvini thug fumbled with a keyring for a moment before he found the right one and jammed it into the gate lock.
The fat thug with the keyring swung the gate open and turned around, just as Odie let go of Sal’s arm.
With one fluid motion, the big man unslung his hammer and raised it high. The iron fist of the hammer’s head gleamed in the torchlight before it began to fall.
At that very moment, Sal heard commotion among the Scarvini men. The laughter and jeers had turned to screams of pain and terror.
The iron fist of Odie’s war hammer slammed down on the back of Don Scarvini, just between the shoulders. The blow crumpled him to the ground like an empty sack of grain.
Chaos ensued, as men screamed and jostled all about.
Sal lunged for the fallen don, screaming as pain tore through his broken arm.
With his good hand, Sal grabbed hold of the locket. Wrapping numb fingers about cold metal, he attempted to rip the locket free of Don Scarvini’s neck, but with his shackled wrists, managed only to jerk the silver chain taught, and send another burst of pain shooting up his arm.
An ominous rumble sounded behind him.
Sal turned and looked up as the hound burst through the open gate.
He floundered and rolled the gasping don between himself and the beast.
The hound’s jaws snapped shut about Don Scarvini’s limp arm.
Sal abandoned his attempt to snatch the locket and scrambled free of his entanglement with the don, as the beast whipped its head side to side, attempting to rip the arm free of its host.
Sal stumbled to his feet, only to come face to face with a Scarvini man.
The man threw a punch.
Sal shoved his shackled arms in the way, and for an instant, his vision went black, then light burst behind his eyes as sharp blinding pain tore through his broken arm.
His legs gave out, and he dropped to one knee, his sight returning in a flash.
Sal’s attacker threw another punch, and cried out, as Vinny appeared, and shoved a knife deep into the man’s back.
Vinny? Sal didn’t understand. What was Vinny doing there?
A bark sent Sal’s hackles on end. He spun to see the hound charging once more.
The beast's maw was as blood-red as its terrible red eyes.
The hound leaped.
And Odie’s hammer took it in the side, jarring the thing sickeningly as it fell whimpering and wheezing to the floor.
Sal spun and was tackled to the ground. He sputtered as the air gushed from his lungs, and his head struck the floor.
Everything went black for just
an instant, but when he regained focus, he realized there was a man on top of him — a big fat man, the Scarvini man that had held the keyring.
Only, the man was—he was dead—and he wasn't moving; rather, he was being moved.
Valla pulled a dagger from the fat man’s back and rolled him off of Sal.
Vinny then Valla—what in Sacrull’s hell was going on?
Valla reached down and helped Sal to his feet.
When he looked about, he realized they were all there. Vinny, Valla, Aurie, and Odie, and it was then that he understood.
They had come with the big man, all of them—the crew had set an ambush.
Vinny finished off a Scarvini man, while Odie roared in pain, clapping a hand to his side as blood ran through his fingers.
Despite the initial advantage of surprise, it seemed the Scarvini men had recouped their wits and had begun to fight back.
Sal knelt and grabbed the keyring from the corpse of the fat man. He fumbled through each of the keys in search of the fit. His search made all the more difficult by his shackles and the constant throbbing pain of his broken arm.
When Sal eventually found the right key, he put it between his teeth and bit down hard as he shoved it inside the keyhole and turned.
The tumblers clicked, and the shackles fell free, sending a shock of pain into Sal's hands.
He ran back to the corpse of Don Scarvini, grabbed hold of the locket, and ripped it free, snapping the thin silver chain.
Only, when he turned on the attackers, it seemed they had already surrendered, the three of them that remained, as it were. They knelt down to their knees, placed what weapons they had on the floor, and put their hands atop their heads to show they meant no harm.
Sal looked at the sea of corpses about him. Ten men, at the least, all dead at the hands of his companions. Odie, Valla, Vinny, and Aurie all seemed fine, apart from the stab wound in the big man’s side.
Everyone was accounted for, everyone but—
“Drop them weapons, or this fat fucker gets it!”
Everyone spun to see Lord Hugo in the tight embrace of a Scarvini man. The point of a knife at the little lord’s temple.
Sal recognized the man—and the blade. Torvald, the man that had been working guard duty the night Sal had broken into the Scarvini estate. Torvald held Sal’s blade—Sal’s own bloody pigsticker—and this Scarvini thug thought to hold it to the temple of Lord Hugo.
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